So basically the solar cells power the rover. The power is distributed from the cells to the battery and active hardware (e.g. SBC). Battery is there when the solar cells lack power production. We have no experience with electronics and need help developing a computer system. The system must control all of the above components and communicate to a control station. We have had success with general off the shelf computer boards but want to design a custom single board computer for compactness, reduced complexity and increased reliability. Meanwhile, it's my understanding that a Arduino board is great for developing such a system. We also have a cRio but we are limited on modules currently.

An Arduino is limited to what it can control. What you want to do will require a laptop with an incredible processor, and software, along with a I/O interface. An Arduino can not do everything want nor does it have the capabilities of processing video. It could probably control the motors, and maybe an encoder, but 4 motors each with an encoder, not possible.

An Arduino is limited to what it can control. What you want to do will require a laptop with an incredible processor, and software, along with a I/O interface. An Arduino can not do everything want nor does it have the capabilities of processing video. It could probably control the motors, and maybe an encoder, but 4 motors each with an encoder, not possible.

How about using multiple Arduinos? Such as one for the wheel motors, another for the camera mast articulation, another for the solar array articulation, etc... and have a main CPU. The problem is we don't know what to use as the main cpu. Currently, we have that setup you listed above. We have a computer in the rover. Though, it has a bunch of cables, it's bulky, has a lot of components we don't need and produces a lot of heat. We are going to have an embedded system to control everything possible. So, in order to outsource the manufacturing of this sbc we need a similar prototyping setup for software development.

Arduino is not what you need. You need a LOT of processing power, speed, and something that can do multiple things at once. I understand what you want to do, but you need something other than an arduino.

I go with the guys suggesting multiple processors. You can use an Arduino for the low-levelmotor and sensing control, but stack on something more powerful for the high-level stuff.Suggestions are Arduino-DUE, various other ARM boards, or Digilent Chipkit boards withPIC32 chips.

We have a company that will do the video compression, imaging and control (control of camera pan/tilt gimbal). This is a dual redundancy system. It seems as if we will be using CAN bus for a distributed sensor+actuator control architecture. So, it goes something like cameras > camera interface board > digital video link > CAN/ethernet/serial. The CAN manages the sensors and actuators. We then have a master controller, ethernet switch and radios.

If I were you, I'd get a small computer (Mini ITX / Micro ATX) and link it to an Arduino via USB; there are lots of small options out there that can be powered with 12V. Let the Arduino control the motors, encoders, rotating cameras/etc. and the computer to handle the navigation, camera data stream, and communications. Looking at the cRio you mentioned I can see where you'd want to get away from that ($3K!).

If I were you, I'd get a small computer (Mini ITX / Micro ATX) and link it to an Arduino via USB; there are lots of small options out there that can be powered with 12V. Let the Arduino control the motors, encoders, rotating cameras/etc. and the computer to handle the navigation, camera data stream, and communications. Looking at the cRio you mentioned I can see where you'd want to get away from that ($3K!).

Well, we already have a cRio but it has some issues and we're sending it back (it's brand spanking new). The CAN bus is for a distributed sensor+actuator control architecture. The stereo vision system will have a DSP and a buffer and will send the compressed images/video directly to the communications. It will not be processed by the cpu. I'm meeting with a company next week which will help us develop a computer system. We have a rover, but need to really get our electronics down for us to proceed.